I’ll be back with reviews during the week – it’s been a bit hectic – and I’m doing the finishing touches for our school mag still. For now, I’d like to highlight the Renard Press’s Christmas card classics. From 2020 onwards they have produced a lovely little Christmas book, sendable as a large letter, containing Read More
Tag: Classic
Review Catch-up & Book Group Report: Le Blevennec, Heisey, Wharton.
As the Eagle Flies by Nolwenn Le Blevennec Translated from the French by Madeleine Rogers The most recent novella from Peirene is the story of a relationship and the effect of an affair on it. The story is told after the end of the affair for good by our narrator, who is a mother of Read More
#NovNov – some classic novellas from my archives
The final week of Novellas in November (hosted by Bookish Beck and Cathy at 746 Books) turns its attention to classics (incl modern classics – pre 1980) and once more I’ve scoured my archives to find a selection to highlight from a few years ago for you. As in previous weeks, I’ve managed to combine with other tags Read More
The Happy Reader is one of Penguin’s best kept secrets…
The Happy Reader A subscription to this unique magazine would make an ideal Christmas present for the cash-strapped. Published twice a year, it’ll set you back just £8 for two years worth of issues to send to UK addresses, a bit more beyond. The Happy Reader is hardbacked size, around 70 pages, and each issue comes Read More
Starting Anna Karenina again
In my teens, around the time of the wonderful BBC adaptation of War & Peace with Anthony Hopkins as Pierre, and ITV’s Anna Karenina with Nicola Pagett as the doomed heroine, I went through a real Russian phase in my reading. We had copies of most of the Russian greats already in the house as Read More
The new look Shiny is here!
The new style Shiny New Books is back with new reviews for you We have a new site design and a new way of sharing our content with our readers. We’re changing from our former ‘magazine’ format, in which we published lots of new pages in big batches every couple of months (and giving you Read More
Penguin 80s …
Little Black Classics Gosh Penguin is 80! They’ve produced a lovely set of 80 little black penguin classics books priced at 80p each to celebrate, plus a lovely website to go with it. I desperately want to collect the whole series naturally, but I’m going to be strong and just pick a few to treasure, Read More
The book that inspired 1984 and Brave New Worl
This post was republished into it’s original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin Translated by Clarence Brown So, I finally read the book that inspired Orwell’s1984 (my brief write-up here). Many other dystopian novels have similarities, including Huxley’s Brave New World (my review here) although Huxley said he was actually inspired by HG Wells, Read More
Bookgroup Report – Always look on the bright side of life
Candide by Voltaire This short novel is another one of those influential classic books that I had always planned to read. I’d bought a copy in preparation, and ten years later it was still sitting on the shelf. I was really pleased that we chose it at book group, and I’m mighty glad to have Read More
Is this a case of middle-aged disappointment?
This post was edited and republished back into my blog’s original timeline from my lost posts archive. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Now my daughter is ten, she tends to read books to herself, but I still read to her at bedtime when there’s a book she requests. We’ve had great fun revisiting some of her Read More
A Whale of a book – I finally read Moby Dick
From Jan 2011: Moby Dick by Herman Melville This was our Book Group’s choice for our Christmas 2010 read – we always tackle a classic over the festive season. This time we couldn’t decide between ourselves, so everyone threw a suggestion in the hat and this came out. Moby Dick is one of those books I always planned Read More
Bah Humbug!
I Am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas by Adam Roberts Given that Yellow Blue Tibia by Roberts was both the maddest and best SF book I read this year, I had high hopes of this zombie take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as a bit of fun this festive season. Would it live up to the fun I had Read More
What could have possessed Dr Jekyll?
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by R L Stevenson When I received an email from the publicist for this new series of classic novels in quality pocket hardback format from Whites books, Jekyll and Hyde was the one that leapt out of the list as I’d never read it before. The Read More
The Childrens’ Laureate’s choices
There was much on the news and in the papers about the Childrens’ Laureate’s choices of best children’s books to celebrate 10 years of having the post – Long may it continue. The five Laureates, past and present, each chose about twelve books which were whittled down to seven. In the media, much is being Read More
